Review: Hold Me Down Hard by Cathryn Fox

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

E-ARC: 52 pagesPublisher: Entangled FlirtRelease Date: May 13, 2013
ISBN: 9781622661398Source of my copy: publisher
Series: standalone Synopsis (from Goodreads)When Eden Carver, Iowa farm girl turned NY actress, decides to seduce the sexy cop next door, she begins to wonder if she’s bitten off more than she can chew. The last thing Officer Jay Bennett wants is to cross a line with the sweet and innocent country girl—no matter how much he’d like to help himself to a nibble. Not only are they in the friendship zone, a naïve girl like Eden doesn’t belong in his dangerous world. But when she asks him to help her rehearse lines, and things go from simmer to boil, he finds himself doing the one thing he swore he’d never do. He knows he needs to walk away from temptation, but when sweet little Eden bites back, it tilts his world on its axis. Because biting back changes everything.

Hold Me Down Hard is very short at only 51 pages and I read it one sitting. But even though it's not long it still packed plenty of steam.

Basically the story was about Eden, a farm girl from Iowa who moved to New York to be an actress, and Jay, a city cop. They're good friends and neighbors and both were in lust with each other but neither made a move, each for their own various reasons. But, after learning that Eden sometimes runs her lines with Jay, Eden's friends suggested that Eden write her own steamy script and get Jay to "help" her so that she can then seduce him. She does and what happened after that was plenty steamy.

I will pretty much read any friends-to-lovers story (that was what drew me to read and review this one even though I usually avoid novellas) but I admit when I first started reading HMDH I wasn't sure if I was going to like it even though it was really short. It read much too cheesy for my tastes. Fortunately, it did get better and the voice/writing was good. Of course since it is a novella, things happen very quickly and simply and the characters were not very fleshed out--not that I minded because I didn't really want to spend more time with Eden and Jay.

It is a fluff read--quickly read and forgotten--but I think it packed enough punch and steam that it is enjoyable at the moment (which is basically what novellas aim to do). If you want to read something you don't have to dedicate a lot of time to, Hold Me Down Hard is worth looking into.